I don't want to have so much humor [in films] that it undermines the jeopardy, but enough to sometime relieve tension.

When you do a studio picture, all the paperwork and legal stuff is already taken care of!

Theres so much diversity of opinion out there, so ultimately you have to listen to it, put it aside, and make what you want to make.

After I script the movie, I have to storyboard it out, I have to budget it, and I have to understand if I can afford all those visual effects or not.

There are trappings of science fiction which I kind of embrace, but there are also cliches which I run from.

In all my science fiction movies, I try to blend the familiar with the futuristic so as not to be too off putting to the audience. There is always something familiar they can grab onto.

To come up short when you reach too far is not such a bad thing rather than not to reach at all, right?

Sometimes, if you leave yourself open, an actor can bring nice nuances to a character.

Strangely, I always have a lot of cut scenes. I keep writing shorter and shorter scripts, thinking that this time, I'll get all my scenes in.

If I know what my finale is when I'm writing a screenplay, then I don't always have to chart out every scene before that. I can adequately find my way. I'm experienced enough to do that.

I guess you don't make any franchise movies unless the fans are there.

A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak.

Once you accept your circumstances and decide to take action, you can welcome change. Change is an opportunity to form new habits and become who you are meant to be.

Given my age, I am pretty near the end, probably, of my career as a writer, a scholar, a teacher. And I wanted to speak of things I will not be able to do.

God makes provision for our holiness, but He gives us the responsibility of using those provisions.

There needs to be a similar degree of flexibility and generosity in the recognition of the humaneness and worth of people who we generally consider as adversaries.

What is there in being able to say that one has dominated the stream in an attitude of self-defense; in proving that one has had the experience of carrying a stick?

There is always a perfectly good excuse, always a reason not to. The hardest freedom to win is the freedom from one's excuses.

My objective is to design a space that nobody else can come up with while using the material that anyone can use.

cats will be clean in a pigsty while pigs will be dirty in a marble hall.